By: Harold Camaya
No matter how much you eat, you don’t seem to gain weight but you want to get yourself out of the skinny girl zone. You are overwhelmed by your fast metabolism. How many times have you looked up those cute business casual dresses online or at your favorite store but decide it wouldn’t look good on you just because you are skinny? If the answer is too many times, it’s time to change that. To start, need to stop feeling sorry for yourself. Then, you build some muscles and bulk up. Follow these few tips to lose your “ectomorph” tag.
1) Modify Your Diet
If you are in a hurry to add curves to your body, first you need to modify your diet. You need to make sure that you are consuming more calories than you are spending. To gain weight, it’s important for you to go into positive anabolism balance.
Before changing your diet, make a chart of your current caloric intake and then add more calories, between 20 percent and 50 percent, to your actual diet. Try to stay within the set caloric range to ensure maximum muscular growth while limiting fat gain. Focus on a balanced diet that consists of healthy fats, lean proteins, and complex carbohydrates. Opt for water over sugary drinks and replace the processed food with natural foods (fruits, vegetables, fish, meats).
2) Eat 6 to 8 Times A Day
Ensure that you eat plenty as you need a ridiculous amount of calories to get rid of your skinny look. Like they say the more, the better. Eat 6 to 8 times a day. It’s going to be tough for a while as your body won’t be able to tolerate that much food.
Don’t let that put you off, eat even if you are not hungry without overthinking about it. If you increase the frequency of your meals, the quantity you consume will become smaller and hence tolerable. Plus, you’ll be able to consume more total calories throughout the day.
3) Caffeine And Energy Drinks Are Your Enemy
Many energy drinks and coffee have additives and stimulants that can keep you awake for long hours and increase your metabolic rate. Also, the energy drinks are poor in nutritional quality and high in sugar. So, it’s better to avoid coffee and energy drink as they will burn more calories than their total caloric content.
Instead, switch over to milk, smoothie, and fruit as they help in weight gain and are healthy. Juices with milk or soy milk can also be a better alternative as they both multiply the calories. You really need to make smart drink choices to gain weight.
4) Prioritize Compound Exercises
If you’re skinny it’s important for you to gain weight but that doesn’t mean you just want to get fat. All the above tips were focused on how to gain weight but if you want to get fit not fat, do compound exercises.
The complex compound exercises like squats, pec deck, pull-ups, and dips help you in building muscles. If you concentrate on these exercises you will be fit and strong as these exercises use almost all the muscles of your body and then when you consume proteins and calories, those muscles tend to “bulk up” over time.
5) Stop Sabotaging Your Progress With Cardio
Cardio helps significantly in keeping you fit and healthy. But in the process, you burn a crazy amount of calories. Calories are one of the key elements for weight gain. Also, cardio hinders the growth of your muscles, it increases the secretion of fat-breakdown stimulating hormones. So, if you want to “bulk up” you need to cut down your cardio drastically as it conflicts with your primary goal.
If not completely, then at least reduce the amount of cardio you do if you don’t want to get more lean and thin.
6) Have A Beauty Sleep
Don’t stress yourself much and go to sleep. Having a good night’s sleep keeps your stressors in check. Also, too little sleep and too much stress don’t come hand in hand with muscles and body fat. So, make sure that you sleep for 8 to 9 hours every night.
You also need to leave your work at the office or most of the school baggage in the classroom and sleep tight. Beauty sleep will help you because your body does not do much work other than building muscles when you are sleeping.
7) Set A Goal
Figure out what weight you’re aiming for and set a weight-gain goal for a specific time… say 5 lbs in three months. Aim for it and work towards it.
As long as you are confident and dedicated, there is hope. You just have to follow these 7 tips to help you bulk up sooner than you expect.
Author Bio: Harold Camaya
Harold Camaya is a blogger who loves to write in different verticals. She co-authored Supercharge Organic Traffic: A popular course focusing on Organic Traffic for Ecommerce. Camaya’s hobbies are traveling and reading.
Want to learn more?
Read the article “3,000 Calorie Meal Plan for Muscle Building,” to help you gain muscle as you train hard.
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